


In Sickness

by NumptyPylon



Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: Banter, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Romance, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-10
Updated: 2020-10-10
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:41:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26930779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NumptyPylon/pseuds/NumptyPylon
Summary: Rayla catches a mean human bug, just out to make her miserable. Luckily, she caught a human mage a while ago, who's out to make her happy.
Relationships: Callum/Rayla (The Dragon Prince)
Comments: 42
Kudos: 124





	In Sickness

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mynewgroove](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mynewgroove/gifts).



> Thank you to mynewgroove for commissioning me, it was great fun, and I hope you'll like it :)
> 
> And I hope anyone else reading this will like it too, of course!

“You’re fine,” Rayla said, leveling a glare at him full of familiar and infuriating defiance of reality and her own physical limits. “So, _I’m_ fine. The doctor said four to five days. It’s been five days. _You’re_ fine. So I’m fine. Logic.”

Callum sighed. “You still have a fever. You just coughed. You’re sniffling. You’re holding onto the wall right now. You’re _not_ fine. _Superior_ logic.”

“It’s just a bug,” she sniffled, familiar unyielding stubbornness in the line of her body, although she seemed to think better of crossing her arms halfway though, lending credence to his ‘holding onto the wall’ argument.

“’Fine Rayla’ can balance on one hand. ‘Fine Rayla’ doesn’t need both feet and a hand to stay upright!”

“’is a bug,” she repeated, her voice rasping in her throat.

‘Fine Rayla’ didn’t need to repeat already flimsy arguments either, ‘fine Rayla’ could run verbal circles around most people, him certainly included.

“Rayla,” he tried again, patient, but not budging either. “It’s a _human_ bug. You’re not human. Maybe your body just needs more time because it’s a dumb human bug, here to ruin your fun.”

“I’m… oka-” she cut off to painful-sounding coughs, especially considering she didn’t think she was sick anymore.

“Are you ready to come back to bed _now,_ ” he asked, mixed worry and exasperation as her coughs abated.

She was not wrong that she ought to have gotten better by now, they had gotten sick pretty much at the same time and he was fine this morning, the sickness having run its course. Not only was Rayla _not_ fine, she was not any better than she had been three days ago.

“Callum?” She looked half-embarrassed and half- …worried? “I’m ready to go back to bed now,” she said meekly, and while that _was_ what he wanted, the uncharacteristic compliance was _also_ worrying. “And I really don’t want to worry you, but… I might fall if I let go. And that would worry you _more-”_

“I don’t let you fall, okay? We’ve established that,” he said gently, stepping forward to slip an arm around her back, the fabric soaked through, the body under it shivering. Oh damnit, Rayla. “I might tie you to the bed though,” he sighed, lifting as much of her weight as he could.

“Kinky,” she grinned. Her weight was slack against him, her rattling breath warm against his neck. “Can’t blame you really, I’m hot stuff,” she sputtered, but it devolved into more coughing and she went _so_ slack against him, he was unbalanced. He sat down heavily in the middle of the room, her with him.

“Callum,” she sniffed, her head heavy against his chest, because she was sliding downwards, him propping her upright. “I _don’t_ actually feel so hot right now-”

“I know love,” he said gently. “You’re really not as good of an actor as you think.”

She didn’t respond.

And now he was on the floor in the middle of the abandoned game room, and she was just totally out of it, and he _could_ have carried her, if she would have let him when they were both standing, but now he was sitting down flat on the ground he really didn’t know that he _could_ get up with her.

He obviously couldn’t just leave her on the cold floor to go get help either, that just felt wrong, even if it was probably the smarter choice and she _had_ made this situation all on her own by being the worst patient to ever exist.

Her hand twisted in the fabric of his tunic. “N-no-” she muttered weakly, but the _fear_ was loud and clear. He drew her limp body into his chest protectively. He _definitely_ wasn’t leaving her. She must have thought she was somewhere else? The pinnacle, maybe?

“I’m here,” he said. “Not going anywhere. We’re at the Bantherlodge, remember? We’re safe here-”

“No-” she said again, even fainter but somehow also… more sure?

She… hadn’t heard? Or she didn’t think they were safe? Or she thought he _would_ leave?

He didn’t know what was worst.

But there was the sound of the door, pushed open decisively, his aunt’s trademark approach to entryways.

Amaya. Good. _She_ could get Rayla off the floor.

 _You feeling better?_ Amaya asked, looking down at them on the floor, clearly still digesting the totality of the situation.

“ _I_ am,” Callum said, with his voice because his hands were full of Rayla. “Rayla isn’t. Would you please help me get my dumb butt of a girlfriend back in bed? She needs a doctor, because she should have been better by now and-”

Amaya sank down to her knees next to him, and her hand on his shoulder was the thing that made him realize that upset was outweighing the exasperation by far, even from the outside.

Callum bit his lip, looking down at Rayla in his arms, feeling her shallow rattling breaths and burning skin.

Amaya lifted Rayla into her arms with a whole lot less effort than he would have and stood up with her.

It was a big difference six months made, Callum thought, looking up at them. He had gone to this room earlier, and stared too long at the dents in the wall and faint brownish-red stains on the floorboards underneath that he knew was Rayla’s because of the purple tint.

Amaya shifted to cradle Rayla’s limp head.

A very _good_ difference. A new world.

A narrative of love.

* * *

Rayla was at least in bed now. He just had to actually… keep her there.

For five _more_ days. At least.

She hadn’t even woken up all the way while the doctor had examined her, but she was now, pushing herself up to stare groggily around the room before settling on him.

“Wha’s happening to me?” she moaned.

“You’re still sick,” Callum explained, rather redundantly. “The doctor said your body doesn’t know how to fight the human bug. But you’ll be okay, your body will learn, it will just take longer. You’ll stay sick for at least another five days probably, the doctor says, but if it’s more than that, then it’s more. Okay? That’s what ‘at least’ means.”

She looked horrified, especially considering how much worse this news could have been. “But I’m _so_ bad at being sick!”

“Oh, I’m aware. But you went five days already. You were only _kind_ of a pain. You can do it.”

“But _you_ were with me-” She groaned, flopping back against the pillow and covering her face with her hands. “That was _so_ needy and pathetic.”

“Hey, that’s what being sick is _for,_ ” he said, reassuring, reaching out to peel her hands away.

“At least you probably can’t tell I’m blushing, with the dumb fever.”

But he could. There was more to a blush than the color in her cheeks, indeed not that distinguishable from the flush of fever. Some indefinable look in her eyes, ridiculously huge and expressive, even glassy with fever. She really _was_ a terrible actor.

“I can tell.” He stayed seated at the edge of her bed, watching her carefully. She was falling back asleep, he thought, and she should sleep as long as she could. “And anyway, you messed up and told me, so there,” he said gently.

“Didn’t… mess up-” she muttered, her eyelids opening halfway to fix him with the least intimidating stare she’d ever given him. “Jus’ don’t… I don’t…”

He bent to lightly kiss her forehead and cheeks, radiating clammy heat. “I won’t leave, you hear? This is where I want to be. With you. Even if you’re miserable- no. _Especially_ when you’re miserable.” He stroked the damp, mussed hair away from her forehead.

“You just got better,” she muttered unhappily. “You said you couldn’t wait to go sledding and stuff-”

“Rayla. Listen. I’m not leaving you here feeling crappy, to go play in the snow. I’m not _leaving_ , period.”

Oh no. That was… the wrong thing to say because he knew that face, the tearing-his-still-beating-heart-out not-crying face. Except with her flushed cheeks and reddened nose and ears, it was even _more_ miserable.

“Hey! It’s okay!” He stroked across her heated cheeks and pulled her close to him. “I said the wrong thing?”

But she shook her head against his shoulder. “You’re… not l-leaving?”

“No,” he said firmly. “Get used to that.”

She stayed pressed against him for a bit, clinging to him, and, he hoped, getting used to that. He knew she had kind of a horrible history, there, of people leaving. He would tell her, and show her, that he _wouldn’t._

She sounded less upset and more annoyed, when she spoke again, drawing back to look at him. “But then we’re just _both_ being punished because of me.”

“Hey!” he said, getting up to sit on the side of the bed instead so she could cool down, which unfortunately wasn’t happening pressed up against him. He wasn’t _leaving_ though, never that, and kept his hand resting lightly against her shoulder. “This isn’t a punishment, it’s a dumb human bug out to make you miserable for no reason and definitely no _fault_ of yours. Okay?”

“Okay,” she sniffled, miserable and unconvinced. He really had to cheer her up.

“It’s not a punishment, it’s an excuse to be whiny and demanding and get me to do stuff for you,” he said, stroking lightly across her overheated, sensitive skin. “Sky’s the limit, alright. What would you like?”

“Tea?” she asked, starting out modestly, but her could hear from her scratchy voice it was at least a sensible wish. She could stand to be more demanding though, he thought.

“Hot leaf juice?” he grinned. “Think bigger.”

“Porridge?”

“Standard military rations breakfast food? I mean… Amaya would approve but… you can do better.”

“A not-wet pillow?” Oh damnit, Rayla.

He got his own, for starters, to replace hers. ‘Wet’ was not an overstatement either. “This is really kind of… moving the wrong direction, ambition- and whiny neediness-wise.” He brushed her damp hair away from her nape as she settled back on the, at least for now, dry pillow. “Not-wet linens aren’t really a luxury.”

“The big leaves… then,” she yawned. “-and… ‘spensive beans… for the military… breakfast…”

He had to think about that one. “You want… the rhubarb compote with vanilla? As topping on your porridge?” That _kind of_ made sense, or at least, that was the most sense he could glean from that. And Rayla nodded against his hand still resting against her neck and cheek, although her eyes stayed closed.

“’n the woolly human pets… with the… funny little… poops… ‘is cute.” _Sheep?_ Lambs, maybe? “Soft…” She added, smiling faintly. Aha! Ezran’s old baby blanket. Rayla had liked how soft it was. And apparently, also the cutesy lamb pattern.

But she was entirely too vulnerable to tease right now, he thought, so he just stroked his thumb along her cheekbone, before pulling away to get her her cutesy lamb blanket from the closet. He bundled it carefully against her chest and around her neck, pushing the heavy duvet down to let the rest of her overheated body cool down.

Callum knelt in front of the bed, to look at her, dozing off now, her little hand clenching in the soft lamb-fabric and drawing it closer to face. It might be the cutest thing he’d ever seen, even with her hair mussed and damp and her cheeks, nose and ears unnaturally flushed.

The sound of her breath rattling in her chest and how terrible she felt just in general… that wasn’t so cute though.

He leant against the side of the bed for a long time.

He should go get those really quite modest things she asked for, but the thought of her waking up alone, as scared and confused as she’d been down in the game room-

No. He wasn’t leaving.

He was spurred into immediate action when she twitched in her sleep and whimpered faintly. He got to his knees to look at her, shivering but… still sleeping so… he shouldn’t wake her just because _he_ was freaking out a little bit.

“Just rest, love,” he said softly, quietly. “Sleep as much as you can, okay? I’ll go get you your tea and porridge with big-leaf-and-expensive-bean topping, when you wake up. And anything else you can think of. I’ll totally misuse my prince-powers and send Soren on a quest to find some rare and precious thing for you, you know.” He leant his forehead lightly against hers, clammy, burning skin, and choked down the worry that was always so much harder to keep away without her there. “You can go even crazier than vanilla, just… get better-”

Her hand let go of the blanket to clumsily fumble for his, catching only his two smallest fingers.

“Sky’s… the limit?” she muttered, her eyes cracking halfway open, a smile tugging at her lips, faint but reassuring and _there._

“Yes,” he said, and meant it. He trusted her, and besides, the list of things he _wouldn’t_ do for her was really not very long.

“A human sky mage?” She asked, the smile brightening, far outshining the discomfort.

“You already have that,” he said stroking fondly across the knuckles of the hand in his. “You really thought you didn’t… that I wasn’t yours already? All the snot must have messed with your head more than I thought.”

“No, head’s fine.” She really did seem a bit better, her eyes more focused. “I was trying to say that you’re rare and precious, dummy.”

“Oh…” His smile spread in sync with the warmth spreading from his chest and rising in his cheeks. “Sorry I ruined your romantic moment by talking about snot.”

“We’ll make it work,” she said, reaching out to place her palm against his cheek. “We have time to salvage the snot tangent.” The smile on her face was soft and fond. “Neither of us are leaving.”

* * *

Bonus sketch:

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed!
> 
> If you want to commission me, you can write me on [my tumblr](https://numptypylon.tumblr.com/) or on [my ko-fi](https://ko-fi.com/numptypylon), although I'm not really formally set up to receive fic commissions there, this is my first.


End file.
